In the Dark

Just a quick reminder that this year’s crop of Nobel Prizes will be announced next week, with the one of most personal interest to me – the Physics Prize – being due on Tuesday 8th October. Before going on here is a picture of my own Nobel Prize Medal:

It’s actually chocolate inside, though it is 13 years old and by now probably inedible if not toxic. You can read about how I got it here.

Anyway, as usual there has been quite a lot of speculation about these awards. Despite not having a great track-record of success some persist in trying to use citation metrics as a predictor; see here for example. Others have a less formulaic approach; see e.g. here.

I don’t really have any idea who is going to get it this year, but here are three possibilities:

• Extrasolar Planets. This has to be a strong contender, but to whom should the prize be awarded?  Possible winners include Didier Queloz, Aleksander Wolszczan, Dale Frail, and Michel Mayor, but the maximum number allowed to win is three….
• Geometric Phase. Although if they were going to win they probably would have done so by now, I still think there’s an outside change for Michael Berry and Yakir Aharonov.
• Quantum Information. This isn’t my area but is very hot these days. It’s also very broad so I’m not sure what specific area and which individuals would prompt an award – quantum cryptography is a possibility, but who?

Anyway, I’d welcome other suggestions through the comments box.

This entry was posted on October 6, 2019 at 4:40 pm and is filed under Science Politics, The Universe and Stuff with tags Nobel Prize, Nobel Prize for Physics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.